Friday, November 21, 2008

Snow!

Snow! This is what greeted me when I stepped out of the cabin this morning. This truly counts as an actual dusting of snow, not a pretend dusting like I had yesterday morning. For most of this week the sky has looked like snow, and I’ve seen flurries and flakes almost every day. But since nothing much was coming out of the sky, I’d gotten out of the habit of expecting it to amount to anything.

Then around 4 a.m. I woke up and saw into the forest from my bed. The woods looked light, almost as though the sun was soon coming up. I think it was this false dawn that woke me up. I knew as soon as I looked out that it was snowing. When it snows in the woods at night, the sky turns a pale shade of tin gray that I only see in winter. This is the snow sky, and as the clouds lower, they brighten the surrounding forest even before the first flakes cover the ground.

Later, after I’d gotten up, I could see the snow was heavy enough to coat the decks and this year’s leaves that fell only last week. The dogs even tried to run through the snow with their noses acting like a snow plow. That didn’t quite work. Maybe next time.

Snowmaking at Roundtop will start tonight, which will likely make the season’s opening sometime over Thanksgiving weekend, though it will be several more days before we can yet know a precise date. Winter is arriving, one little step at a time.

I found you at Phyllis's blog, and was intrigued by the cabin photo. I was also interested in your entry about Yellow Billed Cuckoos. They are one of my favorite 'sounds' (since I never see them) of early summer. We have one or two of them every year, and I don't feel quite right all summer unless I hear one.Love your pictures. We visited Round Top when we toured Gettysburg. Beautiful area.~Debra

Debra: This Roundtop Mtn. is not one of the Gettysburg Roundtop mountains, which are 20-couple miles from me. Gettysburg has both Big Roundtop and Little Roundtop. Mine is just Roundtop. A lot of the old mountains around here have round tops (and many are called Roundtop or Round Top or Big Roundtop or...well, you get the idea).

Yea!! You got some good snow finally!! I woke up yesterday with a another dusting of snow.

It's been cold too but the ski areas are loving that. Big Boulder and Camelback are now open. Which gave me a chuckle, it made the front page of the Pocono Record. Plus the local tv news. Does the Roundtop make the front page when it opens?

Cathy: Roundtop will open sometime next weekend. The local TV news crews always arrive here whenever we start to make snow, then again on opening day. It was 18 degrees this a.m., so it's plenty cold enough!

Pablo: thanks! Fall was just a week ago.

Betsy: I walked around a bit last evening after work. Now the snow isn't as pretty as before I walked on it!

About Me

I live in a cabin in the forests of Pennsylvania. I write about what I see and do in the natural world around me. I've been a hawkwatcher for more than 20 years, a birder for longer than that, and a crayfish-catcher since I was a polywog.